1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to collected data providing apparatus and portable terminals for collecting data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Collected data providing systems have been developed in which when a data collector or reporter sends, using his or her portable data collecting terminal, a picked-up image of an object of data collection, information on the position of the terminal, articles in the form of a voice mail and/or environmental data such as a peripheral temperature of the terminal simultaneously and wirelessly to an electronic newspaper server that supplies its subscribers with electronic newspapers through a network, the server receives such image and environmental data, studies these materials at an edition meeting, and then gives relevant instructions to the data collector or reporter concerned, requests another data collector or reporter having an data collection terminal to help the first-mentioned data collector or reporter in the data collection, and/or issues electronic newspapers including the articles, etc., based upon the collected data. Portable terminals for use in data collection have also been developed.
In each of the collected data providing system and the portable terminal for data collection, its electronic camera and digital video device are capable of inputting thereto as video information data on the situation of the scene of an accident or event. The terminal is capable of transferring image data to the electronic newspaper server. That is, the terminal is capable of fulfilling so-called basic data collecting functions that include inputting thereto a draft of characters and video information and also transferring them to the server.
Present-position locating means provided in the portable terminal is capable of automatically reporting to the server the position of the scene of an accident or event whose image was picked up and a place where the data collector or reporter is at present without causing the data collector or reporter to report such situation severally in speech to the server, and also tracing the action of the data collector or reporter himself or herself.
Since the terminal includes voice inputting means, the data collector or reporter can devote himself or herself to the data collection only by speaking about the situation of the scene while picking up the image of the scene without the need to pay heed to its communication and without missing the timing of valuable-data collection due to the collector or reporter inputting a draft to the terminal and/or calling a desired person and waiting for him or her to answer the phone during collecting the data at the scene of the accident or event.
The server receives image data, voice mail data and data on the position of the portable terminal from the terminal. A journalist on the server side assesses the situation of the scene using such data, drafts a news manuscript and reports it as immediate news in electronic newspaper. The server can give a different reporter instructions as to how he or she should act, for example, can instruct the different reporter to come to the reporter acting already at present at the scene for supporting purposes.
A live camera fixed in a local area is known through which people at a remote place can view the present situation of the scene by remote control.
With the collected data providing system and the portable terminal for data collection, however, the reporters are limited to ones of the newspaper office. Thus, they cannot rapidly and securely take an active part in collecting data on an accident such as a shed-blood accident, a traffic accident or a fire accident whose situation changes every moment.
With the live camera, it is fixed in the local area, as described above, and people in a remote place cannot rapidly and securely acquire useful picked-up images.